Razor's Edge
by Archontruth
Summary: On the eve of invading the Nighthold a worgen rogue is given a chance to change the past for the better, but the consequences may be unspeakable.


_Author's Note: This story is written for the fanfiction subreddit's January 2017 prompt challenge, 'Temporal Paradox'. For those unfamiliar with Warcraft, worgen = werewolf._

* * *

"Oculeth, this doesn't look like the Nighthold," Dextrimus Dapplelake growled as the glow of the teleportation spell faded, depositing the worgen rogue in what looked like the unused basement of a human-built house. Since the spell's intended destination had been a towering citadel of elvish design at the heart of Suramar City he gathered instantly that something had gone wrong.

"Oculeth?" Dex turned in a slow circle, his hands on the hilts of the twin cutlasses as his belt. A moment ago he'd been in the sanctuary of Shal'aran along with two dozen of his closest friends, preparing to assault the Nighthold before the warlock Gul'dan could doom Azeroth by summoning Sargeras from the Twisting Nether. Now he was alone in a dingy chamber populated only by crates, canvas-covered furniture and perhaps a few rats.

"Well this is great," Dex sighed. "I knew we should never have trusted any mage who giggles that much." Knowing he wasn't going to accomplish anything staying where he was, Dex headed for the exit on silent paws.

Dex paused at the top of the stairs, his furred ears twitching, but he didn't hear any movement. Deftly picking the lock on the door he slipped out and found himself in an alleyway between two buildings built along classically Gilnean lines. "Did that daft telemancer send me to Bradensbrook instead of the Nighthold?" Dex wondered.

Hearing the sound of boots on cobblestones around the corner, Dex decided to remain unseen until he knew where he was. Fortunately, being invisible was something of a specialty for the rogues of the Uncrowned. He closed the basement door hastily and gathered his canine legs under him, propelling himself upward in an explosive leap. His claws sank into the siding of the building, and he rapidly climbed up the wall and onto the roof. A glance down showed him a man and woman walking arm in arm, he in a dark suit and top hat, she in a colorful gown. _Gilnean clothes too, if several years out of fashion…_ Dex mused.

Clambering up to the peak of the roof Dex surveyed the landscape – and stared. "This is impossible," he muttered numbly. He'd expected to see the handful of dwellings that made up the village of Bradensbrook in the Broken Isles, but he found himself looking out over an entire city. It was the capital of Gilneas, the land of his birth and rearing. His gaze turned to the west, where he could see countless buildings stretching out toward the city wall, and beyond it green fields and pastures that sloped down to the shores of the Great Sea.

The sight made Dex's heart ache, but it also raised his hackles because he knew this landscape _no longer existed._ Deathwing's Cataclysm had shattered the coastline of Gilneas, sinking some of the land he could see beneath the waves. Below his perch dozens more Gilneans – ordinary humans – thronged the streets. He knew the modern city to be a crumbling ruin populated only by mindless undead.

In his shock Dex hadn't hidden himself as well as was his habit. He heard a woman's scream from the street below, and when he looked down he saw several people staring at him. "Monster! It's one of the monsters," the woman screamed. More than a few men were drawing pistols, and Dex ducked down below the roof's peak as bullets pinged off of the slate tiles.

Swearing under his breath, Dex turned and made a running leap to the next rooftop, sprinting and jumping with lupine grace to put some distance between himself and the disturbance he had inadvertently caused. "Next time I see Oculeth I'm going to wring his skinny neck," Dex growled savagely as he ran.

* * *

Crossing the city on the rooftops and avoiding the towers manned by the city watch that he remembered from his youth, Dex quickly outpaced those who were pursuing him. Finding shelter in a church's belfry, he decided to wait for darkness to fall over the city before moving out again.

It was while he waited in the belfry that Dex found a folded newspaper, abandoned in the lofty perch by some priest or acolyte. He opened it, already suspecting what he'd see. The front page's date was some seven years past, yet it was fresh printed. Dex didn't want to believe it, but the impossible city surrounding him defied his skepticism. "How did Oculeth manage to send me back in time?" Dex snarled. Somehow he'd been cast into his own past, to a time before the Cataclysm and the Forsaken invasion of Gilneas. Judging by the reaction when he'd been seen, Dex surmised that he must have arrived in the early days of the worgen plague.

By the time night fell Dex knew what he had to do. If Oculeth's mistake had put him in a position to prevent the cascade of tragedies about to unfold in his beloved homeland, he wasn't going to waste the opportunity. He _knew_ what was coming, and he'd find a way to warn King Greymane. Neither the earthquakes nor the damned Banshee Queen would take Gilneas by surprise this time. But first, he had a more personal matter to attend to.

Shrouded in darkness, Dex made good time across the rooftops to the east. Crossing the city wall was more of a challenge, well-lit and patrolled as the parapets were, but he was the master of the Uncrowned, arguably the most dangerous rogue alive. Sapping a lone guard bought him more than enough time to cross the top of the wall unseen and descend into the forest below.

Dex's destination was a farm nestled in the hills east of the city, one of hundreds that fed the people of Gilneas. This one was relatively new, its tilled fields leading up right to the edge of the forest that stretched all the way to the eastern coast. "It can't be coincidence that I was sent here today of all days," Dex mused grimly as he perched in the branches of a tree in the woods, watching through the leaves as a young woman in a pale homespun dress emerged from the barn carrying a pail of milk. Even under a white linen wimple, her unruly red hair stuck out in a few places. Her bright green eyes were lively as she climbed the steps to the house, where a burly man with graying hair welcomed her inside.

"I won't let it happen," Dex whispered as the redhead disappeared behind the closed door. "Not this time."

The night's gloom deepened as the moon slid behind gathering clouds, but Dex's yellow eyes were well-suited to the darkness. His pointed ears twitched as he heard the snapping of twigs and soft growls deeper in the woods. His lips peeled back from his sharp teeth in a wordless snarl. Looking down from his leafy perch, Dex could see the first of the enemy emerging from the deep forest onto the edge of the farthest field.

Physically the dark figures resembled him: worgen, humans transformed by an ancient druidic curse created by foolish night elves and brought to Gilneas by an equally foolish archmage desperate for a weapon to repel the undead. Unlike Dex, these worgen were feral and unreasoning. They had been growing in number for months, attacking lone travelers and spreading their curse with their infectious bite.

In Dex's past, when he was only a simple burglar and footpad, these ferals had overrun the farm spread out before him and half a dozen others neighboring it, killing or turning every last man, woman and child in the first large-scale worgen attack to occur in Gilneas. "But not this time," Dex snarled.

When the first feral worgen passed beneath Dex's perch he dropped silently from the branch, drawing the demon-forged Dreadblades at his hips and plunging them deep into the feral's body. Blood sprayed and soaked the freshly planted field of barley. The rest of the pack hesitated for a moment, processing the presence of one like them, but armored, armed and reasoning.

After a moment the feral worgen attacked as one, but Dex was ready for them. He blurred into motion, the Dreadblades a whirlwind of death in their midst. Dex's vision narrowed as the fierce song of the rage in his blood poured forth. The ferals possessed the same rage of Goldrinn, the wolf demigod who was the origin of the worgen curse. What they did not possess, however, was the knowledge of how to _use_ the cursed rage as a weapon.

Facing so many enemies Dex took wounds from claws and teeth through his leather armor, but a momentary retreat and a sip from the crimson flask at his hip kept him in the fight. More ferals emerged from the trees to replace those he cut down, but Dex refused to let them pass.

The numbers of the ferals were thinning when several that had circled around through the fields leapt at Dex from behind. He whirled, but before he could strike silver flashes of light wreathed the remaining ferals in arcane energy and froze them in place. Dex didn't question the aid, moving to finish them.

"Dextrimus, stop!" A tall, thin woman with silver hair dressed in the purple robes of a Kirin Tor archmage stood in the field behind him, having just stepped through a tear in space wreathed in bluish light. Dex could see the walls of a dark cavern on the other side of the portal. Dex did indeed halt, staring at the mage.

"Modera? What are you doing here?"

Archmage Modera, a member of the Kirin Tor from _his_ time, sighed. "Fixing Oculeth's mess, that's what. Khadgar, Kalec and I had to enlist the Bronze Dragonflight's aid. We've been retrieving the other members of your party for weeks, ever since your mass teleport hit a hidden ward around the Nighthold and cast each of you back into your own past." She looked around. "Well, at least you didn't kill all of the feral worgen. There are enough left."

"Enough left for what?" Dex growled suspiciously.

"What they came here to do," Modera replied calmly.

Dex's yellow eyes narrowed dangerously. "They came here to raze these farms. I won't let that happen." He glanced back at the walls of the city. "I won't let my homeland fall again."

"Oh Dex," Modera sighed. "You must. Changing the past carries disastrous consequences, no matter how pure the intent. What happened here has to happen again."

"No it doesn't," Dex snarled. "You're not Gilnean, mage. This isn't your home. My people bled and died and suffered before our exile, and I can prevent all of it. No one will stop me. Not even you." Mentally, Dex started preparing for a step into the shadows. Fighting a mage head-on was suicide, but his swords could pierce magical barriers, and mages were no more immune to a foot of steel through the heart than anyone else.

Modera must have seen something dangerous on Dex's lupine face, because she took a wary step back. "Dex, changing the past will change the future. Say you do save these farmers. Say you save Gilneas. What then? No worgen to bolster the Alliance in the wake of the Cataclysm. No Gilnean reinforcements to turn the tide of battle when Garrosh Hellscream invades Ashenvale. From there, the timeline becomes chaos. Night elves will die in that battle who need to live to fight in Pandaria or against the Iron Horde. Maybe Varian Wrynn or Tyrande Whisperwind will fall in combat, robbing Azeroth of their presence opposing the Burning Legion. Malfurion Stormrage could die, leaving the corruption of the Nightmare unchecked." Modera spread her hands, her expression pleading. "Our battle against the Burning Legion in the Broken Isles balances on a razor's edge, Dex. You know that! Change what happened here and you doom us all."

Dex wasn't stupid; he understood what Modera was saying, but a glance at the distant farmhouse and the memory of the bright-eyed, happy redhead inside tore at his heart. "I can't let this happen again," he protested. "Not when I have the power to stop it. If you insist, I won't warn Greymane about the Cataclysm. But this, tonight, I have to prevent."

Modera's expression became compassionate. "I know this is hard Dex, believe me, but even small changes have huge and unknown consequences. A bronze dragon could explain this in more detail, but everything that happens in the past affects the present. I've had variations of this conversation half a dozen times in the last week. I had to stop those draenei brothers – the paladin and the shaman – from trying to save Shattrath City from the orcs prior to the opening of the Dark Portal. Your demon hunter friend and his wife the hunter were hours away from trying to assassinate Queen Azshara _before_ the War of the Ancients. You know that warrior you hang out with, the older fellow with the shield made from Deathwing's scale?" Modera snorted. "He challenged Warchief Blackhand to mok'gora trying to prevent the fall of Stormwind in the first war between orcs and humans. Fixing _that_ was not easy."

Dex flinched as though struck. The people Modera was talking about were his closest friends, brothers and sisters in countless battles over the last half-decade. He knew all of their stories, knew exactly how much each of them had lost. He knew what it would have cost them to walk away from their chances to fix the past.

"Do you know where I was when this happened?" Dex asked at last, looking around the farm. "I should have been here, protecting my sister and our foster parents. But I wasn't. I was miles away in the city, robbing a rich widow's manor house. Because that's all I was: a _thief_. I wasn't content with the honest labor of sowing and harvesting crops, tending to the land. I was busy amassing ill-gotten gains so Raina could have all the fine things in life, everything she deserved. Instead… she died alone and in pain, torn apart by the animals who were once our countrymen."

"If you'd been here in your youth before your transformation and training as an outlaw you'd only have died with her," Modera said gently. "There would have been no Dextrimus Dapplelake to stand with other heroes against Deathwing, two different Hordes and Gul'dan. Where would Azeroth be then? Where will it be, if time does not play out as it was meant to?"

Dex's swords slid from numb fingers to land in the dirt. He fell to his knees, and with startling quickness his body folded in on itself. The fur disappeared, revealing pale skin. The stretchy sections of his armor contracted around a narrower frame without the bulk of lupine muscle. When it was done the only hair left on Dex was the same color as the girl in the farmhouse, and tears leaked from bright green eyes.

Dex felt Modera's hand fall on his shoulder, felt the whisper of her magic as she wove a spell of invisibility around both of them before dispelling the arcane ward that had frozen the feral worgen in place. Dex heard the remainder of the pack pass him by, but barely registered it as he knelt in a field of freshly planted barley and wept.

"Let's go, Dex," Modera offered compassionately.

"No," Dex said harshly. "Not yet. I owe her this much at least." Modera frowned but didn't say anything further. The night's silence didn't last much longer. Shattering glass and splintering wood was followed by shouts of alarm. Then the screaming started, and every sound was a burning knife in his heart. Dex turned at last to see flames beginning to consume the nearby farmhouse, the harsh orange light illuminating dark, furred figures flowing across the fields toward the capital.

"Come on, Dex," Modera said again. "We must return to our own time and the battle for Azeroth's future that can still be won."

Mechanically, Dex climbed to his feet, sheathing the Dreadblades at his waist. He followed Modera through the portal and into the Caverns of Time without a word. The rift snapped shut at his heels.


End file.
